What are the differences between alcohol-free and 0.0%?

 Alcohol-free does not mean without alcohol

Alcohol-free does not mean that a drink is 100% free of alcohol. What, there's a difference?"  Yes, there is! The two terms  alcohol-free  and  without alcohol  are not synonyms in German food law. 

This is how the terms alcohol-free and without alcohol differ

The definitions of the terms are clearly regulated under German food law, but they have not yet become part of common usage. The terms differ in the following detail: 

• A  non-alcoholic beverage  can be up to  0.5 percent alcohol by volume  contain. 
• A drink  without alcohol  is intended to guarantee that there is no, i.e.  0.0 percent alcohol by volume  contains.

Should we make it even more complicated?  According to German food law, products labeled 0.0 or no alcohol may contain up to 0.05% alcohol by volume. Even 0.0% is no guarantee that a product is free of alcohol.

Why is that?

The reason lies in the processes used to produce food. Due to natural fermentation processes, some foods contain small amounts of alcohol, such as apple and grape juice, kefir, kombucha, but also ripe bananas or sourdough bread. For example, grape juice can contain up to 1% alcohol and a very ripe banana can develop up to 0.6% alcohol through fermentation. Only when the alcohol content is 1.2% or higher does this have to be clearly labelled on food.

A glass of apple juice can contain up to 0.6 percent alcohol by volume.

0.0 Products may also contain alcohol

This is due to production processes. There are often fluctuations in the production process that make it impossible to filter out all of the alcohol. Let me explain it to you with non-alcoholic beer. When producing non-alcoholic beer, an alcoholic beer is produced and the alcohol is removed using dealcoholization. With the current state of technology, the process cannot remove all of the alcohol. Therefore, there is a tolerance limit of up to 0.5% residual alcohol. 0.0% products that contain even less are a recent development that has been made possible by technological advances. Since a guarantee of 0.0% is almost never possible, there is also a tolerance of 0.03% alcohol here.

What about non-alcoholic alternatives to spirits like Laori?

Laori is legally alcohol-free and contains less than 0.3% alcohol.  innovative manufacturing processes  Laori is made completely without alcohol. For the final kick of freshness, we add a little natural juniper flavor to our non-alcoholic alternative to gin, which contributes to the unmistakable gin taste and creates the "residual alcohol."

Why does Laori still have less alcohol content than a non-alcoholic beer?

All Laori products are designed to be mixed. They are not designed to be enjoyed on their own. If you drink a non-alcoholic Laori Spritz and mix it with tonic water, you are "watering down" the alcohol content. This means that a non-alcoholic Laori Spritz (200ml) only has an alcohol content of around 0.06 percent by volume. If you drink two of these, you have consumed less alcohol than if you drink a bottle of non-alcoholic beer or apple juice.

Alcohol-free Laori & Tonic has an alcohol content of 0.06%

The situation is similar with Laori & Tonic, the non-alcoholic alternative to Gin Laori Juniper No 1. Here we have an alcohol content of 0.25% per 100ml . When mixed with Laori & Tonic you only have an alcohol content of 0.06% .

Now you fancy a drink? Mix yourself one!